Real
by EstrangeloEdessa
Summary: My entry for #SG10thAnniverse and #SGSelfieWeek. A quick self-insert fic inspired by that one time I discovered the location of Ferryport Landing.


**#SGSelfieWeek!**

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She's sitting on a train, and she's nervous. She isn't used to riding trains. She's a Southern California girl, and her usual mode of transport is an electric car speeding down a concrete freeway. It took her quite the road trip to get all the way over here to the lovely state of New York. She's never been here before. She went ahead and acted like a proper tourist for a day or two, oohing and ahhing at the sights of New York City, but that wasn't really what she came here to see. (She did spend a disproportionate amount of time at Central Park, though.)

The clouds outside are a little bit stormy, but it isn't actually raining. This disappoints her. Rain is her favorite weather, and besides, it would be an appropriate book-end.

She shuffles a thick stack of maps on her lap. Many of them are roadmaps of New York; others detail the subways and the train lines. She drags her finger across one of these latter ones, first tracing Route 9D and then the Metro-North Railroad to it (she's always paranoid she'll get lost). Other maps in the pile include topographical charts of these mountains, hiking trail guides around Bull Hill, and garish touristy maps of little towns. Perhaps the oddest map the one that isn't even printed on a sheet of paper. Instead, it decorates the front cover and flyleaf of a thin hardcover book.

She gets out at a little village called Cold Spring, though that isn't her final destination. Wandering around the town should quiet down some of the anxiety she feels. She hands over five dollars to a history museum. She steps into an antique store but doesn't buy anything; it was the name, "Once Upon a Time," that drew her in. She thinks about the people in this little town, and wonders what they would have done if knew about the monsters living just a few miles away.

When she gets back on the train, there's only one stop left to go. From there it's a bit of a walk to the hiking trailhead. The trail is somewhat difficult, and she's not the most efficient packer—along with the stack of maps in her backpack is a set of nine children's books—but hiking _is_ a thing that she is used to, and so she shoulders the bag and sets off uphill.

She doesn't really rest until she gets high enough on the trail to see out across the Hudson river. Way out there is an island, and on the island is something shaped rather like a castle. It is a castle. But most people will call it an arsenal, and then keep on going to tell the story that makes sense to them, because why would there ever be an actual _castle_ built here?

Something rustles behind her. She turns around.

A girl steps out. She's older than one might have pictured her—about nine or ten years older—but easily recognizable. She still wears pigtails. Her shoulders are swamped by a large brown coat covered with innumerable pockets.

"You've been staring over there for a while," says Daphne Grimm.

More rustling, and then another woman jumps out, her blonde hair flying around her angry face. "How many times have I told you not to just go up and start _talking_ to people?"

"Yeah, whatever," says Daphne. She's not really bothered by it. "What's your name?"

"Edessa," says the newcomer, and then, "Oh my gosh, it's real."

Sabrina narrows her eyes. "What do you mean, 'it's real?'"

"I've been trying to figure out this place for forever, and... I mean I figured you had some spells up or something and that's why nobody figured out... but I knew if I wandered around the trails for a while I might come across..." Nervousness and excitement are not a good mix for Edessa. They inevitably result in awkwardness. She grins, partly because there's nothing else to do. "I found you!"

"And she found us!" Daphne declares triumphantly to her sister.

"Yay, she found us," says Sabrina with significantly less triumph. "And if she can find us, who else can? I thought you told me you messed up the maps!"

"I did," says Daphne defensively.

"She did," says Edessa, swinging the backpack down from her back, "and actually, I've got a lot of complaints about that—did you know that Mount Taurus is labeled as being _north_ of Bannerman Island, when in reality it's _south_ of Bannerman..."

Sabrina cuts across her speech. "We need to get her back to the camp with us. She knows too much."

"What do I know too much about?"

Sabrina eyes her suspiciously. "Ferryport Landing? The bad guys uprising? The new threat of evil, and the current war?"

"I actually don't know too much about that," says Edessa. "But I would love to hear all about it!"

"Then yeah, come back to camp with us!" Daphne cheers. "I'll tell you everything."

"Don't tell her _everything_ ," says Sabrina in a tired voice as she turns to lead the way.

As they head off the trail into the forest of magic barriers and unmappable paths, Edessa can't stop talking. "I can't wait to hear about everything new. Are these the same people as in the Scarlet Hand? Are they different? I brought a book of fairy tales with me, it'll be useful! I also brought books of—well, I shouldn't tell you about that. But I _knew_ you weren't just sitting around until the epilogues! Tell me, do you think..."

But all that she's thinking is, _It's real, it's real, it's real_.

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 **Are you guys all participating in #SG10thAnniverse yet? Here's my own last-minute submission for Week One, based off my dream vacation and that one time I discovered the real location of Ferryport Landing.**

 **(Google 'Ferryport Landing exists' if you want to find that particular rant.)**


End file.
